Enough Already!

CAN I JUST GET A BREAK? It started snowing again last night... AND THE SNOW SHOVELS WERE MOVING AGAIN THIS MORNING! REALLY? WE NEEDED MORE? 

I was laughing at the news this morning when they were featuring the snowstorms in the pacific northwest and were telling all of the tales of terror from Seattle and Portland. Poor Spokompton (or Spokane, if you prefer) already got hit last week and they don't even care to report on it! Yeah- we are getting that storm that Seattle got yesterday but we already have 2-3 feet of snow on the ground! 

My sore body is just getting worse. My husband let me use the big girl shovel today (I had to use the little one the other day that is for light use :( and it was NOT used lightly) and I have a new set of sore muscles. We only did about ninety minutes of shoveling today, since we had such a good start from our shoveling binge on Friday. 

I am having a rough food day. My husband went and picked up a few take and bake pizzas (thanks) and even though he got me a thin crust one (with half the calories) I still ate about a 900 calories worth of it (5 pieces/180 calories each). It tasted really good. Granted it was a lunch and dinner combo (we were shoveling during the lunch hour) and will probably not cause me any harm if I keep it as just my lunch and dinner combo- I am just frustrated because pizza kind of triggers some cravings. Large amounts of melty, tasty cheese makes me want to eat more. I am going to have to make a no pizza rule because I just can't make peace with it and moderate it. It is one of the only things I cannot chill out on. Oh, ice cream too- I just don't even bother touching the stuff because it only ends in misery. 

So, to keep the day from going to shit, I am going to vow to eat a snack of steamed broccoli later when I get hungry and keep it JUST AT STEAMED BROCCOLI. I will end my day on a good note if I can keep it there (less than 2,000 calories). 

I just had a pity party moment. I think I am going to get over it in just a few minutes. I am pretty fed up with being stuck at home. Boofuckingwhooooooooooooo! 

P.S. Just a quick promotion. A very dear friend of mine has started a blog. He has struggled with his own set of issues around weight for a long time and I am really intrigued to hear his journey in recovery and thought you might want to read along. He is still in his first week... 

Fell of the Wagon and hit my head...

Wow! The last day has been tough! Tough and stupid. I feel kind of like I just woke up from a coma. We had a crappy Thanksgiving and it turned into a crappy 24 hour period of shit eating. There was no binge but there was a lot of feeling like I didn't care and would eat what I wanted. 

We spent Thanksgiving in Lewiston, Idaho, with my husband's family. We ended up being duped into eating with some of the in-law's insane neighbors. They are terrible, pushy assholes and we had shit food and worse company. I actually ate very little because the food was so gross. We brought the turkey and an amazing salad and that is all I ate because the insane neighbors cook like they have no taste buds and no sense. 

On our way back from Lewiston, my husband and I bitched and moaned and got pretty worked up about how terrible the day had turned out and how un-Thanksgiving everything was. When we got home we ordered pizza and I went out and got drinks and dessert. Not good. Why? I got sick as hell again, just like I did on the Day-After-Halloween-Party. It was a combination of really unhealthy food and sugar and it made me sick. All morning I was indisposed and by the time I felt better I was so grumpy that I just piled some more shit on my plate. 

Thankfully, tonight I felt the looming terror of another day of sickness and cleaned things up with a large dose of green veggies. I cannot believe how intolerant my body is to junk food now! It is really a shock because I have eaten SO BAD for SO LONG and now after two months of extra healthy eating I am almost allergic to it. I need to keep that in mind because it really sucks to celebrate the holiday and eating whatever and then having some kind of system explosion. It is making my holiday memories blurred by flashes of (sorry, I know, TMI) sitting on the crapper, staring at the wall and being in terrible pain. 

Christmas is less than a month away and I need to make sure that I really rein myself in so I don't do this again. I loved the turkey and salad thing and maybe we can have a super-duper turkey and an amazing salad with some fresh bread and call it a day. Something has to change. 

Challenges.

I am having a pretty tough sixth week. It is not a catastrophe, but I am really feeling the challenges of the long term changes I am making. 

Sugar seems to be the problem. I past my thirty days without it and had two experiences where I consumed desert and some of the cravings came back that had faded. Both times I ate dessert in the last week were pretty moderated experiences. My physical reaction to sugar is not what it used to be. It felt a little foreign when I was eating it. Usually I have a bit of a rush when I eat it but both times I did not have this typical reaction. But the last couple of days have brought intense night, sugar cravings. It is hard because when I eat a desert when I am not in a sugar craving I can moderate it quite well but when I am craving it and give into it- well it turns into a binge.

How does one balance that? It is a challenge because I know I can eat desert if I am in the right mind frame, but I don't really want it then. The flip side is that if I am craving it and I give into that then it is all over... I was sitting at the computer looking at recipes to make a cobbler or something with blueberries last night and I realized that if I did bake (or in desperation went out and bought something) that I would be faced with a binge. It kind of sucked. 

I am reminded of the addiction part of my food relationship on a daily basis, sometimes though, I find myself rolling around in self-pity. It is not a good state to be in because it actually enhances my desires to binge and be out of control. When I feel this way I am neck-deep self talk that is abusive and cruel. It includes a dig about my body and weight and a hit on how little control I have and that the consequence is not being able to enjoy anything and mostly that I am hopeless and will always be out of control with my food. 

Obviously, I am working on this kind of self-talk and abuse but in my darker moments it really gets to me and I find myself struggling with "FUCK IT!" thinking. I don't know if you can relate to "FUCK IT!" thinking, but it is where you throw aside what you have invested in and do whatever the fuck you want because the struggle is too much at the moment. It really is about the moment- usually if I can get through an hour of resisting giving in then I can avoid the fall altogether. I must say though, the anxiety and pull of that hour is overwhelming. 

I have thrown the towel in so many times with my eating struggles. Hundreds of times. It is not easy to commit to change and overcome an addiction. It is not about thirty days or one year- it is about a long term, life changing struggle. 

I can't fathom giving up on what I have started this time. I have almost six weeks of balanced choices in the "bank" and can rely on some of those to help me along during the challenges that I face. 

Death By Cereal?

There is something about cereal and milk that makes me a little out of control. I have explained my cereal intake in previous posts- before I started working on things it was around three cups a day. I have always had to buy the healthiest kind I can and really avoid the sugary kinds.

Occasionally, I used to buy a box of golden grams and eat the entire box in the course of one day. 

Today I had a BIG struggle with cereal and found myself eating an extra serving after dinner. I usually have a starchy snack a couple of hours after dinner and tonight, along with my sugar craving, I wanted to have a bowl of cereal. No big deal- so I had one. Then another. As I sit here typing this post I want a third bowl.

So, I am making a rule that cereal is for breakfast only.

I know that strict rules around food is a red flag for anorexia and even bulimia but right now I need some rules. In my relationship with food there have been NO RULES. Everything is/was chaotic and structureless. Now I am welcoming rules (in moderation and balance) to help bring in the structure and sanity that I need to accomplish my goals.